New Quebec ad campaign aims to battle homophobia

In the latest salvo of a $7-million plan to eliminate homophobia in the province of Quebec, a new ad campaign is telling Quebecers to get used to seeing gay parents and women kissing in public.

In one of two 30-second commercials, a middle-aged woman comes home to discover a love note accompanying a rose. She walks into an adjoining room where she is met by a surprise party. Another woman, presumed to be her partner, then emerges from the crowd and gives her a kiss.

“Does this change what you were thinking 20 seconds ago?” asks a narrator in French.

In a province already known as one of Canada’s most socially liberal, the idea is to get Quebecers to question “their real openness to sexual diversity,” said the Quebec Ministry of Justice in a statement.

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There are few campaigns in North America or around the world that have focused on the fight against homophobia,” said Martine Delagrave, a general manager with Cossette Communications, which designed the ads.

She said that most Quebecers like to think of themselves as being open-minded, but usually with a few “buts” attached.

“Quebec is a tolerant society, but it’s not one where there is complete social acceptance,” she said.

A recent provincial government survey of 800 Quebecers found that while 78% reported being comfortable with gays and lesbians, 40% said they were still leery about seeing two men kiss in public.

A multi-media website accompanying the campaign features a brief quiz meant to pinpoint a user’s visceral reaction to sexual diversity.

“Lucy is a kind, smiley person, but Lucy hasn’t always been Lucy. She used to be Luke. Does this bother you?” asks a narrator overtop images of a woman buying produce at the grocery store.

“What if she was your co-worker?”

Those who finish the survey by repeatedly clicking the “not at all [bothered]” button are met with a message praising their openness as “an example for … friends, family and society at large.”

On the flip side, those who click through the questions with escalating outrage are issued with a warning that “discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity, whether through words or gestures, may seem innocuous but still causes havoc,” along with a link to a homophobia information page.

The campaign, which is scheduled to run until the end of the month, is part of a $7-million anti-homophobia effort that Quebec authorities often tout as a North American first.

Launched in 2008, the program gave the province’s Minister of Justice the responsibility “for the fight against homophobia” and laid out a five-year plan to coordinate government resources against homophobia.

“Although Québec has passed legislation to recognize the legal equality of sexual minority members, they have yet to achieve full social acceptance,” reads the Justice Quebec website.

Critics of the effort have decried it as a crackdown on the right to oppose homosexuality.

“The citizens and institutions of Quebec must remain absolutely free … to defend, if they will, the traditional view that homosexuality is deeply problematic physically, mentally and morally,” Douglas Farrow, professor of Christian Thought at McGill University, wrote in a 2010 paper.

Although government spokesman Paul-Jean Charest said the response to the latest campaign was “globally positive,” a small trickle of complaints has been received by the Ministry of Justice, most of them expressing shock at the sight of same-sex couples kissing in a government advertisement.

While Canada is often cited as a beacon for gay rights, social acceptance of the LGBT community is nowhere near universal.

In a 2012 Angus Reid poll, 59% of Canadians reported thinking that same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry — although it represented a 10 point jump over similar polls conducted in 2004.

In Australia, Britain and the United States, meanwhile, less than half of respondents reported similar sentiments.